Every Friday, millions of viewers check Freddie Wong’s youtube page for his latest video. Freddie W is the 10th most viewed channel on YouTube with over 330 million views and close to 2 million loyal subscribers. Every week, Freddie uploads a video, starring him in a new adventure full of special effects, guns and campy dialogue. His videos are well made and fun to watch, but the quality of his videos isn’t the main reason he’s had so many views.
Freddie has built a loyal following by being consistent.
His fans blog, tweet and repost his videos to their followers, spreading Freddie’s VFX heavy videos around to their friends. Freddie promises a product at a certain time, then he delivers. Freddie’s ritual, posting a video every week has created the ritual of watching, sharing and commenting on the weeks new Freddie W video for his loyal fans.
People need rituals, and they will reward you for being generous enough to provide them. Rituals give people structure. Sure Freddie has his off days but he delivers on time nonetheless.
Every Wednesday for 4 years, I had a contract with the comic book shop and the comic book publishers. I would come to the shop for an hour, there would be new books to read, new stories to discover, and new conversations to be had with fellow patrons and the comic book shops staff. I would buy my regular stories and promise to return for more of the same in 7 days.
It took me three months of not buying comic books to realize what I was actually doing. While I genuinely enjoyed the stories I read, I was there for the structure. I had ritual of making a pilgrimage to my local comic book store with millions of other people around the world.
Having a ritual like buying comic books gave my weeks some structure. People used to plan their weeks around the TV guide, not only because they enjoyed the shows, but because the shows gave them structure. And once someone has brought into something that satisfies such a primal need, they can become invested. Once someone is invested, they will work to sustain their ritual.
The lesson here is to ship consistently. Put yourself on a regular schedule, and let time dictate when something is ready…not your taste. For me, the first project is this blog. For someone like my friend Dave, it’s his album Beta Max.
Consistency isn’t the biggest determiner of success, but it solves problems many of the other factors to success creates. Doing something consistently and sharing it forces you to overcome fear of judgement. You improve much faster than if you wait, or are too meticulous in your execution. It also reminds you, that you have a a potentially infinite number of tries to get it right.
I think my favorite aspect of consistency is it reminds you that you don’t know everything. Kevin Nalt is a filmmaker whose blog Will Video for Food, saw a tremendous spike in traffic when he wrote about the youtube partnership program. I doubt he planned for that to be his most popular blog entry, but had he not written it, and all of the posts that came before it, his blog probably wouldn’t be as popular as it is now.
So with that, what will you make your new ritual? What will you ship consistently?
References:
Freddie W’s Youtube Page
Will Video for Food
